Padres at Phillies

His battery-mate at TCU was Bryan Holaday. Happy to report, Holaday is very much alive and well, catching professionally for the Toledo Mud Hens.

If that fastball from Andrew Cashner had connected, though, Holaday might still be seeing more stars than a planetarium.

Cashner was the right-handed Horned Frogs pitcher in that particular game against Baylor, and to that point, the fastest any of his deliveries had been recorded was a mere 99 mph. People told him after the fact, though, that the speed guns caught him hitting 100 on at least one fastball.

“I think it was the pitch where I crossed my catcher up,” says Cashner now. “He called a two-strike slider and I threw a fastball that went right by (Holaday’s) mask. It was called strike three, but the guy got to first ’cause the ball shot right past Bryan’s head.”

You can imagine the theme and tenor of the ensuing conversation on the mound after Holaday called time.

“We still laugh about it today,” says Cashner. “It’s funny now, but it wasn’t very funny at the time.”

And that was how Cashner, the most frequently used pitcher on the Padres staff, found out he could throw a baseball at triple-digit velocity. One hundred miles per hour is the speed standard, pitching’s equivalent of the sound barrier, and it comes as no surprise that Cashner grew up in Texas with bazooka-arm Nolan Ryan as his idol.

Research done by Padres officials has uncovered no pitcher in franchise history who’d clocked 100 mph before Cashner came in a trade from the Chicago Cubs last winter. Cashner since has had fastballs posted on the Petco Park scoreboard at 102 mph.

According to a statistics-centric baseball website,

fangraphs.com, Cashner’s fastball this year has averaged 98.5 mph, fastest in the majors. The norm of his change-up is a preposterous 88.5 mph.

“I don’t really look at velocity (reports) until I see the video after the game,” says Cashner. “I usually look at one pitch in warm-ups, just to see where I am that night, but velocity isn’t what I key off. I’d rather hit my spot at 94 than hit 99 and miss my spot.”

Over the past two weeks, Cashner has been both hit and miss at triple digits. With scoreless appearances against the Washington Nationals and Milwaukee Brewers, he recorded two straight wins, but three hits and two walks over two-thirds of an inning got him charged with three earned runs in a 6-3 loss to the Miami Marlins. Downright epic was his power-vs.-power showdown with Miami slugger Giancarlo Stanton, with all eight pitches of the bases-loaded walk clocking 101 mph or better.

With the addition of Huston Street to the Padres’ ever-lengthening disabled list, Cashner’s heat made him a natural candidate for the closer’s role, which is where many projected the 6-foot-6, 25-year-old to eventually be when the Padres landed him in the Anthony Rizzo trade. But also know that Cashner came into professional baseball as a starting pitcher and hasn’t given up on that aspiration.